Afterburner & CLIE SJ20?

[palmgeek]

Has anybody been using Afterburner on their SL/SJ? I ran it for about a year on my old Palm IIIxe. I was so used to running at 33MHz (on the IIIxe) that the SJ20 seemed slow to me.

HOWEVER (and this is a BIG however), I'm somewhat skeptical that Afterburner is what eventually killed my IIIxe, though I have no actual "proof". One day (the day before I left for Christmas vacation - great timing, huh?) my IIIxe started getting scrambled screens, and/or just wouldn't come on at all, or it only ran for about a minute, then locked up (requiring a soft reset).

I'd like to run my CLIE a little faster, but I'm concerned about killing it. Does anybody have some experience with Sony CLIE's and Afterburner? Any advice? Any proof that my IIIxe just died, and Afterburner had nothing to do with it?

All comments are welcome...

[SeanMac]

I'm running Afterburner happily on my SJ30 at 54 Mhz. The only problems are those documented, IR doesn't work very well but it is not a commonly used function for me. No other problems, but I can't speak to the longevity.

I noticed a DEFINITE speed improvement though, in games and in Kinoma.

SeanMac

[Unregistered]

I can't get afterburner to run on my SJ20 and FastCPU has such a bad screen flicker that it is not usable. I ran FastCPU and Afterburner before that on my Visor Prism for almost 2 years and never had a problem other that slightly shorter battery life.

Email me at swagner@lynnet.com if you get it to work without too much screen flicker ont he SJ20.

[palmgeek]

Hi,

I've had it working on my SJ20 - I'm just worried I'll cook it.

If you want to blaze (no pun intended) the trail, be my guest! Let me know if you smell flames, and/or if your CLIE stops working suddenly (just prior to your leaving on vacation).

Here are the settings I used: (if it's not listed below, I *didn't* check that option box)

Fast Mpx
Fast Page
Fast Hotsync
Adjust Ticks

Gray= Off
Default= 48MHz
Accel= Always
Find= Norm
Slow= Never
LCD/n= 1 (and checked)
LClk/2= 24 MHz

As far as I know, it is the LCD/n that causes the horrendous flicker. Make sure it is set to 1.

Good luck with it.

ron

[JohnH]

I've been running FastCPU on my SJ20 since December and it's been fine. I'm running at the 'maximum' built-in speed of 46MHz and it hasn't troubled any of the bundled apps or my hacks. It does speed up screen refreshes a bit, and that's what I wanted.

The only noticeable flicker I notice is when I do a system-wide Find. There isn't any setting to reduce the FIND to the normal 33MHz speed, so I just live with it.

From what I've heard, FastCPU is generally thought to be better behaved than AfterBurner, which is why I chose it.

~JohnH

[palmgeek]

John,

I gave FastCPU a try shortly after reading your note. I didn't notice much of a difference between that and Afterburner, except that it has a very cool UI.

However, the system locked on me when I tried to run QuickWord. I removed it, but the faults remained. Then I noticed it affected ThoughtManager as well. (Faults, requiring me to press the reset button on the screen each time.) I tried 3 times, and the faults were there every time, even after I had removed the program from my device.

I just finished reloading QuickWord and ThoughtManager, and things seem to be back to normal. So much for being better behaved...

I tend to run very large applications on my device, many of which use the memory stick. Perhaps that's why it didn't behave well on my unit.

Oh well, it never hurts to try... (especially when you have a full backup stored on the memory stick) :-)

[Unregistered]

As for FastCPU, I had lots of trouble with it on the SJ20. Screen flicker, soft resets, etc. Afterburner at max (56Mhz) works fine. I do not know the effects on battery yet as I have just tried it out. The increase in speed is nowhere near as dramatic as it was on my Visor Prism, Palm m130, or Visor Platinum.

After a bunch of playing around I attribute it to the screen drawing speed on the SJ20 which does leave something to be desired. However you can see my last 2 palms were color and I have gone back to grayscale. The price of the SJ20 for its features is awesome. It is no speed demon ands runs things off the card slowly. The screen draw rate is somewhat poor. But the Hi-res and white backlight make it perfect for me. It is more readable outdoors than any color palm I have had. The text is georgous for ebooks, databases, spreadsheets, my datebook, and Avantgo. This is what I use it for.

I would like it to be a bit more snappy, but for the price I can live with it. No need to spend $400 for a great palm. As for overclocking, I think the gain is too minimal to make it really worthwhile on this particular device. I will keep it loaded for a day or two to see its effect on the battery and how well it cooperates with IR (I print from it in the office and use an IR keyboard).

Thanks for all your help though!

[JohnH]

About the slow refresh speed of the SJ20, I've noticed it too (that's the only reason I installed FastCPU, actually). But strangely, when I've played with a color SJ30 in the store, the screen redraw appeared much snappier.

My guess is that Sony skimped on some hardware acceleration bits on the SJ20 but included them on the pricier color SJ. Wish they hadn't done that... but I agree the paper-white SJ20 is easy on the eyes.

~JohnH

[madmaxmedia]

I had Afterburner installed on my SJ20, and my SJ20 no longer works!!!!

I think it has more to do with me crushing the screen into little shards, rather than the Afterburned program though... Afterburner worked fine for me, although I didn't really notice a huge boost either-

[lgmccoll]

Afterburner is working fine on the SJ20 but an occasional flickering of the backlight in some applications.... and the StowAway driver doesn't work when Afterburner is active...

[Experiment 626]

Checking out palmgear.com for Afterburner....

Requirements: HackMaster

Any known problems with HackMaster I need to worry about on my SJ-20?

Unregistered Afterburner is limted to 37Mhz says the webpage.
What is the SJ-20 running at without Afterburner? 30 Mhz?

Money is spread thin and I'm wondering how much it will/would cost to try this Afterburner thing. HackMaster shareware and need registered also?

Just trying to do research and get a bottom line price and then figure out if I think its worth the speed improvements once I get all the info.

Thanks!

[palmgeek]

It's not (price or speed). The screen refresh is your main slowdown, and Afterburner won't help much there. I was getting a 2x speed increase with my Palm IIIxe. I only get about 1.2x with my SJ20. In my opinion, it's not worth even running it, given the problems it causes with other applications. I say all this, and I HAVE registered it (and run it at 48MHz). I don't normally set aside a program I've paid money for. This is a rare exception.

IMHO - it's not worth running it on an SJ20. See other posts above. I know others agree.

[Swagner]

I agree that it is not worth running. Even at 48 Mhz (you need to register to go beyond 37) the increase is not great. If big databases are your thing, it may help, however it does not do a good enough job at speeding up the screen to make it worth while, especially if you do alot with your infrared port or a keyboard as these are typically sporadic with overclocking.

I use a wireless keyboard and print infrared all the time. Over the past few days I have played with FastCPU and Afterburner and neither works well enough to make it worth the headache.

All in all though, I am thrilled with the SJ20 and actually traded in a palm m130 for it. Hi-res and 16meg outweighed the color.

Thanks for all the input.. maybe time to register here.

[lgmccoll]

I have a registered copy of afterburner and it runs at 54mhz. Applications are significantly faster. Only problem is the keyboard.

Lynn

[palmgeek]

I too, have a registered version of AB.  It locks up my SJ20 at 54MHz.  Not pretty.  Runs fine at 48MHz though, but not enough benefit to make it worthwhile.

When I ran AB on my Palm IIIxe, I *easily* noticed if it got accidentally turned off.  On SJ20, it's a toss up.  Can't really tell one way or another. 

To see what was really going on (facts vs. opinions) I ran some loosly-timed (I used the second hand on my wall clock) speed tests.  Here are the results:

I tested the card read speed at 48MHz. I loaded a 1.144MB Mapopolis map from the card with and without Afterburner running. I did the same test with a 200kB image in SplashPhoto from the card, with and without Afterburner.

MEMORY STICK

Large Map
w/ AB 50 sec.
w/o AB 60 sec.

Photo
w/ AB 20 sec.
w/o AB 28 sec.

Here's the comparison loading the same map from MAIN MEMORY

Large Map
w/ AB 4 sec.
w/o AB 7 sec.

The Main Memory results *look* good, but what's under the hood?  That's what counts.  Where is the speedup (from 7sec w/o  AB, to 4 seconds w/ AB) taking place?

Look at the results from the Speedy program; they confirm what everyone suspects: 
With an AB setting of 48MHz. The "Graph Test" pulls the overall score down to 40!

Calc Test: 46MHz
Mem Test: 48MHz
Graph Test: 31MHz

Without AB, the scores were worse, and again, the Graph Test pulled the overall score down.

Calc Test: 33MHz
Mem Test: 34MHz
Graph Test: 22MHz

Now, that's roughly a 1.5x increase in speed, based on the above (limited) tests.  My Palm IIIxe was showing almost a 300% speed increase!  That's why I'm not very impressed with AB on my SJ20.  For all the IR and Serial issues, I just don't think it's worth such a measly speed boost.

 

ron

 

[wedge]

IMHO X-Master is a better extension (hack) manager.

 

v/r

wedge

Originally posted by Experiment 626
Checking out palmgear.com for Afterburner....

Requirements: HackMaster

Any known problems with HackMaster I need to worry about on my SJ-20?

Thanks!

[ward0001]

I have Afterburner installed with TealMaster handling the hacks. I get a top speed of 54MHz on my SJ30. No problems. All apps that use IR are added to the exclusion list so that they aren't overclocked, thus no issues.

About overclocking the RISC Dragonball processor, overclocking will increase the drain on the battery significantly. But heat is not an issue as with typical CISC desktop processors.

I've used FastCPU v3 and while it does allow me to overclock all the way to 66MHZ and is stable at that speed, it doesn't have the advanced options that allow the hotsync app to be boosted.

Besides, I can't 'feel' any difference in 54MHz as opposed to 66MHz.

[Unregistered]

Hi everybody...

Mine is set at 40MHz, except for MSImport (33MHz, higher won't work).

IrDA is working, can beam to my Visor and HotSync with computer.

(However, even through IrDA HotSync is working, it's miserably slow compared to USB...)

Settings:

Fast Mpx
Fast Page
Fast Hotsync
Adjust ticks
Gray Off
Default 40MHz (my SJ20 seems to max out at about 40MHz)
Find Keep
Accel Always
LCD/n 1 (other than that will cause serious flickering)
LClk/2 24MHz (seems no difference if set to Never, just use the default setting so)
(MSImport at 33Mhz)

Speedy:

===Afterburner at 40Mhz===
Calc: 2.51 (40MHz)
Mem: 2.42 (41MHz)
Graph: 3.72 (27MHz)

Total: 8.65 (35MHz)

===No O/C===
Calc: 3.04 (33MHz)
Mem: 2.93 (34MHz)
Graph: 4.51 (22MHz)

Total: 10.48 (29MHz)


As indicated, the graph performance of SJ20 (and probably SL10) are pretty bad. As far as I know SJ30 doesn't has this problem because it has a dedicated chip for its graphics subsystem. In which the SJ20/SL10 relies on the Dragonball to do the job.

At default settings, there are some flickering in ZLauncher, at 40MHz, it's much less noticeable. Which is why I prefer to O/C it.

BTW, whatever Afterburner is activated (even no O/C), in case from WA Clock return to ZLauncher, it will cause serious flickering. Other than that I have no problems so far.

[Unregistered]

After further testing, IrDA works sporadically at 40MHz...

[Unregistered]

Just tried QuickBits... It seems to work but the performance gain is only 1% according to its own benchmark...

After testing my Visor Deluxe with Speedy, I found that it's even slower (much indeed), VD's graphics subsystem is much faster than its CPU and RAM, however it should be noted that VD uses OS 3.1 and support 2bit grey depth only.

Any other way to accelerate SL10/SJ20?

[Lpas]

Originally posted by Unregistered
Just tried QuickBits... It seems to work but the performance gain is only 1% according to its own benchmark...


Warning!! I tried to install Quickbits on my SJ30 this morning and had to do a hard reset. Immediately after installing, I noticed the display on certain programs (i.e. handyshopper, AddressPro, etc.) was completely screwed up and before I could go back and delete the program I crashed. The crash was followed by an inescapable loop of fatal exceptions.

I know Quickbits is supposed to be incompatible with the later model Clies but I've seen nothing to indicate there are any issues with the SJ30s. I don't know for sure if it's a Quickbits/Clie thing or some type of interaction between Quickbits and other programs I have installed but be very careful! Now I'm getting a fatal exception on hotsync and can't complete my back-up.

[Unregistered]

Pity... I also got the screen/text corrupt issue on my SJ20 when I installed QuickBits, but it only started when I runs QuickBits and I was able to remove it...

[JohnH]

For what it's worth, I remember reading in another forum (which one? I can't remember) that QuickBits is next to worthless on SJ-clie's. They apparently accelerate graphics routines that don't matter in the Clie.

The Clie's problem isn't processor speed per-se, but rather that there isn't a dedicated chip to handle graphics tasks... hence the sucky graphics performance. Oh well \_Q_/

I saw an SJ33 in the store today and it's screen redraw speed is VERY QUICK! Not noticably different than an NZ90... or a Palm TT.

I must say, the 'quickness' of these slightly newer PDAs calls to me. But given my 5-month old SJ20 is my first PDA, prudence argues for patience! Damn! ;)

~JohnH

PS: FastCPU was screwing up beaming with my wife's Visor Edge today. maybe I'll have to slow it down or just can it afterall!

[sollars9082]

why don't they just stop playing this afterburner?

[minnaarpieters]

I have a problem - I installed Quickbits (That speed up/hack thing...) . After installing, it cant find any way to improve the speed of my SJ20. But that's not the big deal. I CANT DELETE IT!!! Why? Ive tried many ways to delete it (MS GATE, the normal app launcher way, different launchers...), nothing works. Some programs even reckon its installed in the RAM. Does anyone know how I can get rid of this program?

[Unregistered]

Have you tried FileZ?

[palmgeek]

If it is a hack, you need to disable it before you can delete it.